By the Dawn's Early Light
by RobinRocks
Summary: USUK. "That's why I like this time of the day so much – when the morning is just breaking and the world is still asleep. It's quiet and calm enough for us to just be together without any interruptions." Happy Valentine's Day!


This was originally written for the Sweethearts Week Day 3 prompt over on the USUK Special Relationship comm., which was 'Just the Two of Us'. I didn't have time to do anything for the actual Valentine's Day prompt today but thought I'd share this here for the occasion. It's not actually about Valentine's Day but it's kind of sweet, I guess?

Hope you're all having a lovely 14th February!

By the Dawn's Early Light

It had been a long meeting. A long, boring, tedious meeting that dragged on for hours. Ludwig had shouted, Feliciano had whined, Herakles had slept, Ivan had intimidated Yao, Kiku had had no opinion of his own and Alfred had been separated from Arthur by a table so wide that he couldn't even kick his feet underneath it.

It had been loud, chaotic and thoroughly unproductive (as usual).

Last night, too, even after the meeting had ended and the host – Matthew, allowing the conference to take place in a Toronto hotel – had been promptly forgotten about by all but Francis, there had been no privacy. The restaurant had been filled with various couples and groups all shouting back and forth to each other, with the occasional breadstick flying from one table to another and Feliciano doing the rounds of people he knew wouldn't snap his wrist to see what he could scrounge from their plates.

And then, of course, there had been the glorious symphony of the night. The banging and creaking and muffled groans and yells and calls of names. How ironic it was that world peace was so noisy.

"We could add to it," Alfred had suggested half-heartedly, looking up at the ceiling to observe their lampshade merrily swinging.

Arthur had simply given him one of those "Are you completely _mental_?" looks over the top of his book before burying his nose in it again.

"I guess it _is_ kind of off-putting," Alfred had agreed, wincing at what sounded akin to a cat being run over with a lawnmower coming from directly to their right.

He had turned on the TV instead, loud enough to drown out most of the uncomfortable background noise, and watched the latter half of _Superman II_, a programme about monster trucks and three episodes of _The Simpsons_. Arthur had curled up against him with his book and that had been that.

Dawn broke, however, and there was silence.

Damn hotel beds. They were always so comfortable. Blinking awake beneath the first flash of pink-gold sunlight streaming in through the gap in the curtains, Alfred's first thought was to simply turn over and go straight back to sleep. He was exhausted from the meeting and the sitting-up-half-the-night-watching-TV-until-everyone-else-shut-the-hell-up and absolutely wasn't ready to face the day quite yet. He burrowed further down into the sheets and rolled over, finding Arthur at his chest; he wrapped his arms around him, pulling him up a bit so that he wasn't dangerously on the verge of crushing him. He felt nice in his grasp, all warm and mussed from sleeping and his pyjamas soft beneath Alfred's hands. Alfred cuddled at him, burying his face in his shoulder and breathing in his scent, the familiar traces of ink and paper and the sharp spice of tea leaves that clung to him. It hadn't ever changed, Alfred knowing the smell of him from sharing cots in the cramped trenches and huddling close in his bed as a child afraid of ghosts and ghouls. It was pleasant, that familiarity; the tiniest of details that made Alfred very comfortable with him.

His snuggling woke Arthur, however; he soon had a hand pressing against his face, trying to shove him away.

"Get off me, you," Arthur groused feebly, twisting in his grip.

Alfred laughed, clutching him tighter still.

"Noooo," he said into Arthur's neck. "I caught you fair and square."

"Alfred, I'm tired thanks to that lot keeping us awake half the night," Arthur sighed.

"Me too. I don't even want to _know_ what Lovino was shrieking about in Spanish at three-thirty." Alfred yawned and wriggled closer. "Let's just cuddle up and go back to sleep."

"Mmm." Arthur nudged Alfred's chin with the crown of his head. "Good idea."

Alfred laced their legs together and exhaled deeply, getting comfortable. He loved the feel of their hearts pressed so closely together, nothing separating them but flesh and bone and Arthur's thin pyjama shirt; he liked that they fell into rhythm right after each other so that there was never a moment when neither was beating. He loved that their breathing was like that too, his inhale matching Arthur's exhale so that their ribcages moved against each other gently back and forth like the tide. He loved this silence between them, the tiny pockets of nothingness in the morning where nothing mattered, where there was no meeting, no war, no pollution, no finance, no world leaders on speed dial, no worry whatsoever – where it was just them, physical and human, in each other's arms as though they weren't nations with scars and histories and responsibilities.

"What time is it?" Arthur suddenly spoke again, shifting in Alfred's grasp as though he was trying to sit up.

"God knows," Alfred murmured. "Early."

"We have another meeting at ten." Arthur _was_ trying to get out of his arms.

"We've got plenty of time." Alfred stubbornly stilled him again. "Settle down – 's too early for this, babe."

"At least check the clock," Arthur insisted, his voice a bit muffled from being pressed against Alfred's shoulder.

Alfred groaned and reached over Arthur towards the bedside table, groping for his cell. He flashed it towards himself and squinted at it, having to bring it closer to his face to read it without his glasses.

"Six-twenty-five," he said, sighing gratefully. He threw the phone across the covers. "Alarm's set for seven-thirty." He kissed the crown of Arthur's head. "Go back to sleep."

Arthur was _still_ struggling, trying to sit up again.

"Perhaps I should shower now before everyone starts getting up and using all the hotel's hot water."

"That's nonsense." Alfred refused to let him go. "There's plenty to go around. This is a Marriott."

"Well, I'm awake now—"

"No, _staaaay_." Alfred clung to him. "You're tired. We got like three hours sleep. You'll just fall asleep in the meeting. Stay, Arthur." He managed to wrestle him still again, feeling him give up without much resistance. "Stay in bed with me all day."

Arthur snorted.

"We are _not_ staying in bed all day," he replied shortly.

"Ugh, I wish we could." Alfred rolled onto his back, blowing a tuft of gold hair out of his eyes. "That would be a perfect day."

"Hm?" Arthur shifted after him, laying his head on Alfred's chest. "Doing nothing but lying in bed? Wouldn't you get bored?"

"Nah. I'd sleep until about ten, ten-thirty, then I'd have a cup of coffee. Oh, and I'd totally make sure to have a mini-fridge by the bed so I could have breakfast without having to get out from being all snug under the covers! I guess I'd watch TV while I had breakfast, maybe a movie if there were no good cartoons on. Then I'd play some video games and after that I'd have lunch – I'd make sure I had some McDonald's burgers in the fridge for that. Then I would watch another movie, a good action one about a hero who saves the day—"

"Yes, by getting out of bed."

"Oh my god, this is only for one day, okay? Where was I? Oh, yeah, movie. Well, I guess I might be kinda tired after all that excitement so I'd have an afternoon nap and wake up in time for dinner. I'd order pizza for that and I'd play some more games while I was waiting for it to come. Then it would be time for all the prime-time TV! So I'd eat my pizza watching all the good stuff until about eleven and _then_... I would have some hot explosive sex with you and thank you for your company and your patience."

"And who says that I would even be there?" Arthur asked incredulously.

"_Duh_ you'd be there!" Alfred laughed. "How lame would that be if I was there by myself all day? I'd get lonely! No, see, that would be the best part! It would just be you and me all day with no-one else to bother us. Kind of like _this_, I guess, but with more stuff happening. You could read or knit or whatever it is you do while I was playing games and I'd totally share my pizza with you."

Arthur shook his head, exhaling deeply against Alfred's chest.

"That's ridiculous," he said. "You know perfectly well that it isn't that easy to shut out the rest of the world."

"Well, yeah." Alfred patted Arthur's back. "That's why I like this time of the day so much – when the morning is just breaking and the world is still asleep. You don't have to shut it out to be alone in it then. It's quiet and calm enough for us to just be together without any interruptions."

Arthur opened his eyes and looked up at Alfred, smiling.

"You seem to have put an uncharacteristic amount of thought into this," he said. "It's almost poetic."

Alfred grinned, sliding his hand down into the dip of Arthur's back and then over the curve of his behind.

"You seem surprised that I can have a way with words," he replied, pulling Arthur in close so that they were entangled more comfortably than ever.

"I shouldn't be," Arthur agreed with a sigh, nuzzling Alfred's chest. "It's not the first time I've heard you talk like this." He gave a soft little laugh. "Although admittedly I'm the only person who ever _has_."

"Hey, this is my special language all for you, reserved for this daybreak-world of just the two of us. It's only intelligible between pillows and sheets and you're the only one who can understand it." Alfred dropped his voice to a whisper. "And you have to keep the existence of _this_ world secret at least, my intrepid little explorer. It's yours to treasure as long as you never speak of it to another soul."

Arthur laughed.

"Fine," he said, kissing Alfred's collarbone. "Then I'll sink all the ships that seek us out."

* * *

I managed to rack up eight Valentines over at USUK, which wasn't a bad haul considering I barely joined in. XD

RR

xXx


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